Even though I have nothing of note to contribute to this thread, it's very interesting to follow, just lurking, being a sponge and soaking up the cool tidbits that make this whole adventure an acceptable addiction since early 2004.Thanks all, keep up the good work!

_________________"Ordinarily, I'm a wee bit insane, but I have do have some lucid moments when I'm just merely stupid."

Got the ok from the boss, so here's the maps we put in Unwritten. Again, these are based on multiple sources & interpretations, and designed with the needs of Unwritten GMs and players in mind- so they shouldn't be considered The Right And True Maps by any means.

Got the ok from the boss, so here's the maps we put in Unwritten. Again, these are based on multiple sources & interpretations, and designed with the needs of Unwritten GMs and players in mind- so they shouldn't be considered The Right And True Maps by any means.

Thanks for sharing them.

Huh. You've got Ashem'en in a completely different direction than it really is. The KI navigation reading for the lower platform in the Er'cana Silo in Ashem'en is (direction) 1,912 torans, (distance) 1,562 shahfeetee, and (elevation) -164 shahfeetee. That’s a distance of four miles, or 6.3 kilometers, east by southeast from the Great Zero, and lower than the lake level around the island, which is about -94 shahfeetee; standing on the esplanade near the ferry terminal, the KI elevation is -93. Your map has it much closer and northeast of the island. I also notice you aren't showing the City at all.

On your cavern map, K'veer is at an angle that doesn't match up with the view from its Great Hall. While it's very hard to see, the arch is between K'veer and the tallest stalagmite on the island, which holds the Great Zero. (I truly wish Cyan had come up with other adjectives to use in place names. I'm very tired of "great" this and "great" that!) As you may or may not be able to see in this picture, K'veer is looking south at the island, and is at most only a few degrees off from the zero line. I've confirmed this by traveling between the two, something that can be done in a bots' private instance of K'veer if you want to try.

I see you're using one of the earlier designs for the island as the basis for the Ae'gura map, not the simplified one that was used in Uru. I see at least one directional difference there, as well. The Great Tree Pub is said to be in J'taeri, at the base of the district. It's coordinates are 18270 torans, 22 shahfeetee, -48 shahfeetee. That puts it at 105 degrees, or roughly east by southeast of the Great Zero. You've got it swapped with Jaren and too far north. The map is also missing an entire district from the west side of the GZ.

What were the reasons for the choices you made in your maps? Can you talk about them?

There was a lot of discussion and futzing that went into it, including tossing contradictions and unclear information out the window, balancing expectations for people who were familiar with Uru with more extensive and appropriate design, and just plain deciding what we did and didn't like. Since there hasn't ever been any One True Map and coordinates, even with Uru, we built what fit best with our needs.

Well, let's be honest, the DRC's own map in the courtyard is not the most accurate, either....

_________________KI# 00071084 | "The truth speaks for itself, I am just the messenger." -Lyta Alexander(Note: Any comments or opinions, taken whole or in part, are mine and do not reflect the stance of GoMe.)

As the guy who created the maps for Unwritten, I thought I'd pop in to share my reasoning for some of the stuff that's been pointed out.

Ashem'en is where the Er'cana silo is located, and it's clear from looking out the roof that it's in the main Cavern, because the Arch is visible. It's also noted as being part of the City Proper in the Kings notebooks that describe its location. Given both of these elements, along with the fact that the silo is supposed to feed into the lake and is open to the air above, there's no way that it could actually be located over 50 spans below the shoreline. (I should also note that as far as I'm concerned, the KI coordinates in the Cavern are bunk for anywhere that isn't the main Ae'gura map or the Great Zero map, because according to them, Kirel is also supposed to be underwater, when visually it's clearly at about the same elevation as Bevin.)

The City is directly across from Ae'Gura (to the right on the Cavern map as it appears here), and was probably not labeled because there wasn't room for the text (Eleri converted my labels for the book, so she'd know better than me). The original map that I provided for the book does more clearly indicate its location, but such are the joys of publishing .

For K'veer, its location in Uru contradicts basically every other resource we have for its location, including the map posted on the old DRC website brought up earlier in this thread. While the overall shape of the Cavern - and the placement of Ae'gura and the City within it - are a fudge between the BoT/DRC maps and the map of the Cavern as depicted on the floor of the Great Zero, K'veer didn't end up needing to move very much to align it to both maps. I can almost 100% guarantee, though, that you see Ae'Gura from the angle that you do in Uru (and EoA) because Cyan likely recycled the Ae'gura and lake assets from the Neighborhood maps.

J'Taeri's location, similarly, is only "official" to the extent that it has KI coordinates, which as I mentioned, I don't trust. I knew it was a Guild district, and that it needed to be higher up on the island than the "rabble" districts. It also needed to be comparatively lower than the Jaren District, which is where Aitrus and his parents live, and which is described as being substantially more upper-class and on the eastern side of the island in BoD. This is an occasion where having a 3D map would be super helpful, because J'Taeri is actually a lot farther down the island in elevation than Jaren (Jaren is around 1500 feet up, while J'Taeri is around 700).

(Yes, I did actually model Ae'gura in Unity before I committed it to map form. That's a normal thing that normal people do, right?)

The extra district that's not on my Ae'Gura map is missing simply because it didn't read well when the contour lines of the island were removed, and it struck me as too small to actually be a functional location when I was modeling it. Because there's no contour lines holding you back, though, if you want to put a stalagmite on that side and tuck some buildings away inside it, go for it .

Overall, it's really difficult to put together a map that accurately depicts D'ni as it's been described and represented over the years, because there are contradictions everywhere once you start seriously looking at everything. I also didn't really want to have to rely on Uru as the definitive source for the maps, because it's still just a game, with bugs and technical limitations aplenty that hamper the scope of what's possible in the imaginary place-space of a tabletop RPG. I did my best to marry what Uru players are familiar with to the arguably grander scope of the Cavern that we've seen in the novels and original Uru concept art, and come up with what I hope is an acceptable, comprehensible compromise.

I didn't see any real conflict in the elevation data for the various locations, because a moment's thought made me realize this: D'ni is located in subterranean caverns. Caverns are not level. Elevations in a given cavern's floor will vary radically. Having had that pop into my head cleared up the idea that Ashem'en could have a lower water elevation than the lake around the island.

The backdrops used for the Great Tree Pub and the Er'cana Silo are the worst thing you can use as evidence, because they used exactly the same file for both locations, and that file was preproduction concept artwork of a design that was not used. The difference between the Pub and the Silo was that for the silo, they rendered it in a lower resolution, stretched it vertically a little, and darkened it.

The backdrops were never really meant to be seen directly, so cannot be used as reliable way of placing the location of either building.

One thing that can be taken from the Pub model is that J'taeri was as much vertical as horizontal. It was a series of tunnels and rooms hollowed out of the side of Ae'gura island all the way down to very near the waterline, although we also know that there were meant to be some surface buildings as well from the clay model of the island. Also going by the clay model, it looks like it stretched from just above the Guild Hall capital around the western side of the island. The pub was supposedly located at the waterline on the southeastern side.

Just to make things worse, there is one existing exterior view of the Great Tree Pub available. It's a very brief glimpse in the Uru opening animation. In the animation, it's set in the foreground with the same backdrop behind it... which would put it nowhere near Ae'gura itself, much less J'taeri! By that view, the pub would be just outside the Er'cana Silo.

Caverns may not be level, but water certainly is. If the silo is supposed to connect directly to the lake as implied by the game (since feeding pellets into the solo feeds the lake at large), then it can't be substantially higher or lower than the lake's water level (and there is no evidence that the lake is terraced in any way, so all of the water in the lake is at the same elevation, as dictated by physics). Similarly, it is fundamentally impossible for Kirel to be at the elevation Uru says it is, because it has the same view of Ae'gura as Bevin, meaning it is in the main Cavern and thus certainly not under the level of the lake. Other things can certainly be lower than the lake's shoreline, but those two things are not on that list.

Like I said, contradictions abound, because if J'Taeri is supposed to be a vertical pile (which is only evidenced by flymoding into areas of the game not meant to be seen by players), then that utterly contradicts with every description of it in the novels. As I said, I took it as my task to try to marry all of the available material into a cohesive whole that makes some semblance of sense to people who have played Uru, as well as people who are only familiar with the novels, as well as people who don't know anything about the setting, and do so in a way that can be depicted on a single, top-down 2D map.

Again though, the Unwritten maps are NOT definitive or declarative or canon. If you disagree with what I chose to do, that's fine. I'm just explaining the decision-making process that went into the layout I chose to use for the purposes of giving Unwritten players a starting point, should they choose to use it. If you want to play Unwritten and use Uru as your sole source of map reference, you're welcome to.

Just to make things worse, there is one existing exterior view of the Great Tree Pub available. It's a very brief glimpse in the Uru opening animation. In the animation, it's set in the foreground with the same backdrop behind it... which would put it nowhere near Ae'gura itself, much less J'taeri! By that view, the pub would be just outside the Er'cana Silo.

Alahmnat, this is a debate about observable data, not a criticism of your work. It's your game, so no one is going to say you can't create it the way you want. Rather, I believe we all commend you on the effort.

One last point that should be made, though, is that the books are not a source that can be quoted as definitive proof of anything. They can be considered canon history, but it must be remembered that they were written by an outsider who took the data given to him by Cyan and sometimes made changes that were not intended to be included by the Millers, Watson, or anyone else at the company. The classic and most obvious one was the placement of the Cleft somewhere in the middle east or north Africa. Cyan had always intended for the Cleft to be in New Mexico.

Uru (and its sequel, Myst V) is the "reality" that everything else revolves around, so if the books conflict with things that can be observed in the game, then the books must be considered in error. Even the earlier games are considered to be works created by the Millers as a way of easing the world into knowledge of the D'ni, and are not considered technically "real" the way Uru is. In Uru history, the Millers were commissioned by the DRF to make the other games.

Back in September of 2013 a few of us tried to come up with an in-game explanation for the silo and Kirel being below lake level with the KI coordinates being correct. In game there is no reason the KI wouldn't be correct. Basically the thought was they must be in different caverns.

The bottom platform in the silo is below lake level, so the water around it must be even lower. Kirel's background is different (reversed) and there is no telescope, so perhaps it was not meant to be with the other hoods.

That's not very helpful, then. I'd update my data on that image on my site, but not without some form of evidence that it's real. Again, it doesn't help that they used a generic backdrop for it that they used pretty much anywhere they needed a "cavern" look. As it stands, the reason why I thought it was the pub was because it's overall shape fits what the pub interior looks like. If nothing else, though, I may mention that as a "thought to be".

Tweek wrote:

larryf58 wrote:

Uru (and its sequel, Myst V) is the "reality" that everything else revolves around, so if the books conflict with things that can be observed in the game, then the books must be considered in error.

This is true of Uru but not of Myst 5. Myst 5 was a game made by Cyan from the account of Dr. Watson when he freed the Bahro, thus like the other games there is room for artistic licensing.

I stand corrected. I was mostly thinking of it from the standpoint that all of the Ages in Myst V were originally meant to be part of Uru.

Back in September of 2013 a few of us tried to come up with an in-game explanation for the silo and Kirel being below lake level with the KI coordinates being correct. In game there is no reason the KI wouldn't be correct. Basically the thought was they must be in different caverns.

The bottom platform in the silo is below lake level, so the water around it must be even lower. Kirel's background is different (reversed) and there is no telescope, so perhaps it was not meant to be with the other hoods.

Which is not a bad thought, because the existing maps seem to show the D'ni cavern as being about 3 x 1 mile(s) in size, so 4 miles away is pretty much guaranteed to be outside of it. However, given that the maps are not 100% accurate (just looking at the shape of Ae'gura on them tells us that), that estimate could be way off.

I was thinking in terms of the levels being more or less terraces as the water level descends. However, a point that Alahmnat raised which is quite valid is that the Silo pellet dropping project was intended to raise the light levels of the algae in the main cavern lake. That would be difficult to justify if the Silo was on a lower terrace or in another cavern. Yet it's a little hard to say that the elevation and distance readings are wrong, because Cyan must have had some sort of plan for all that. More puzzles.

Bevin and Kirel are not the same place, but all of the other neighborhoods are instances of Bevin. Here's a quote from my article about them:

The coordinates of the spot where everyone links in is 60265, 999, -71 for all of the neighborhoods except Kirel. The link in spot for Kirel is 60040, 1036, -103. These coordinates are for the angle offset from the zero line, distance, and elevation above or below the zero marker. That means that there is a 225 torantee angle between Kirel and the other hoods, a 37 shahfeetee difference in distance from the Great Zero, and a height difference of 32 shahfeetee between them. That puts the two areas roughly side by side, but at different altitudes and distances. In US measurements, that's a difference of about 1° in angle , 493' in distance, and 426' in height.